Monthly Archives :

November 2008

PageRank – The Natural Choice?
150 150 eriks

I have been thinking of the concept of content ranking lately or specifically the constant struggle between diversity and singularity. Maybe the paradox is us as humans. Singularity is simple. It is transparent. Diversity is not. It creates this twilight zone reality where you do not really know what is the true or false. The easy, simple answers disappear. PageRank… The amazing algorithm that disrupted a whole business and market. It gives us what we need. Or does it? Really? PageRank works (simplified of course) very much like biological evolution. The strongest (or here most reputable) survives. The strongest win. They concur the weakest. The alternative voices such as the extinction threatened species are not heard. They are lost in the noise. Is this right? Or is it “just” the natural choice? Hard question right. Maybe we all are programmed to obey the nature of the evolutionary laws. In every aspect of our lives.

Just to make it a bit more tangible. The best user interfaces are singular in their nature. Take Google for instance. One search box. That’s it. You can say the same thing about the essential objectives behind YouTube and Flickr. They do perform one task and they do it really good. It is one objective really. Making uploading of videos and photos respectively dead simple. Nothing else shadows the major objective. I do not want to go into greater detail, but I will assume you at least kind of get what my point is.

Maybe humans are after “the” answer. They want that ultimate, simple, neat little answer. The this-is-how-it-is answer. That neat little package of how things are and especially how they are not. But are things really that simple? It makes life very easy. All search engines I have seen have been designed that way, and even worse most media companies. But the matter of fact is that the reality is not singular. It is diverse. It is complex. It is human. It really is diverse. It is the twilight zone where you do not really know what is the answer. You just have to accept it for what it is. I love it, but I gather most don’t.

There are so many tangents we can go into. The concept of an ever increasing universal entropy. Or the fundamental concept in quantum mechanics were there is not a concept of a neat little single answer. The answer only lies in the future there.

However…

Ever since I saw the movie EPIC 2014. ( Yeah, I know. Get over it, Erik! I promise I will someday. :-) ) The key question from that movie is whether what we (believe) we want really is what we want. That is a hard one as no single person can answer it. Even more mindblowing. If it is not what we want, why do we want it? How can we shape a media where we get what we want, yet provide the diversity we seek but not seek? How do we shape it so that we see all issues yet do not feel like we get things stuffed down our throats? That is in my eyes one of the biggest challenges for the media industry as well as our society in the future.

Specifically for the media business: Is PageRank type solutions really what we want or is it what we believe what we want? I do not know. What I do know is that we collectively have to decide. Maybe we reach some answers, maybe we do not. But we should think some of it.

Again. The time for media is amazingly exciting these days. The possibilities are endless. Welcome to the party!

  • eriks
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The Media Arena of The Future – Key Characteristics and Participants
150 150 eriks

The state of the news industry resembles the music industry when file sharing emerged. The social media sites are creating a disruption that makes the traditional players all fumble when it comes to how to merge the traditional news coverage with citizen coverage and opinion. Undoubtedly we are in a place in time where the media industry is as exciting as ever, yet we will see new players on the market constantly come.

The essential characteristic of media right now is content packaging and promotion, not content distribution or content creation. The trend towards such will only increase as we move forward. The main disruptions here have been the open-source content management systems and blogging platforms. Putting up a website now is as simple as a few clicks. You are up and blogging in no-time and can start to share your opinions. There are an enormous amount of sites providing possibilities for social bookmarking, multimedia upload and integration with your own site which will help you in the promotional part. In all honesty I would have to admit that learning content promotion is the toughest part and the biggest challenge for any blogger, photographer, video maker or any other content creator.

The main issue for user generated content is validation, quality assurance and trust (especially for unknown and alternative voices). I will not here get into too many details here as it is a pretty broad and slightly complex topic, but the main issue are:

  • Digg voting type of solutions leads to group fractioning. I have also seen too many solutions where you give the power to a few selected users, why you still have an issue to get the less strong yet very valid voices heard. The super editors in Wikipedia is another example here of a model that has proven insufficient, as one of their super editors turned out to be a fake. The issue is not that he was a fake but that it has been claimed that all super editors are prominent member of field of expertise they cover there. It creates a distrust of the system which projects over the quality of the content on the long term.
  • PageRank type solutions lead to the survival of the strongest and/or reputable. The hierarchy has been set which makes it very hard for new entrants in the space and for new, unknown voices to be heard. It is perfect for information seeking, but is non-functional for news and opinion.
  • Reputation of the single user is an interesting factor to build trust, but not solely sufficient. We have seen examples in the media industry before. For instance the tampered photos of the bombings of Beirut in Lebanon 2006 of a well-known Reuters photographer and the made up news stories by the New York Times journalist Jason Blair. You need to have a counter force here too.

It is obvious that the right, sustainable solution will be a combination of these three ranking attributes. Such a combination will be much more scalable, much more robust, completely technology based and still adequately resolve the ranking of user generated content than any human based solution. This is especially true for the long tail market where the amount of content is just too big for humans too handle – both practical and consistently. Think of it as a simulation of the traditional newsroom process. That is pretty cool, right?

The media arena today is highly competitive why the shrinking profit margins calls for a technology based solution with community support to cover a bigger piece of the cake and monetize that part. Keeping the cost structure very low, yet keeping the quality high with an increased engagement and entertainment value for the consumers. This tendency we have seen in another parts of the web already – YouTube did it for videos. Flickr did it for images. Facebook did it for social networks. (Ok, MySpace has played some role here too, but I still think Facebook has a better and broader solution here.)

The key skill sets of the participants of the new media arena:

  1. Consumers
    • Information snacking
    • Broad interests
    • Geographical breakdown
    • The question “why” is increasingly becoming more important
    • Engaged, and entertained
    • Relatable and tangible presentations necessary
  2. Creators
    • Multimedia more important
    • Text as a medium is dying, or at least becoming less important as the story telling media type.
    • In-the-field reporting increasingly important
    • Knowing and closely interacting with their readership very important
  3. Producers
    • Fast consumption calls for a fast medium of distribution
    • The globe as a market calls for a web solution
    • Diverse distribution mechanisms
    • Multiple reporting entries (cellphone, web, email)
    • Multiple media types (text, audio, pictures, video)
  • eriks
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Google Search Results – A Place for Alternative Voices?
150 150 eriks

I read this post at the OnlineJournalismBlog that covers a post from the SEObook.com. It raises a few very interesting questions, but the primary one is whether Google Search Results Pages are really the right place for alternative voices? However do alternative voices have another good outlet is the second question you have to ask yourself?

First of all Google’s business is primarily designed to get revenue from SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and the nature of PageRank is specifically designed to make the most reputable voices (i.e. websites) heard first. Diversity will disappear though per definition. It is kind of intended (somewhat simplified). Originally to make informative, on-point search results. However you get the trust, but will effectively filter out the diversity and weaker voices.

The second issue is that a search result page (and Google’s in particular) is designed to show clear, on-point single entries. It shows you The Answer. Nothing wrong with that but diversity comes from several answers. :-)

Now over the the more interesting question: Is a search engine the “right” place for a diverse media outlet? I would say no. The irony however is that the technology behind a search engine can be used for it, but the purpose of a search engine is not inline with the presentation of alternative, diverse voices. It is a complex topic indeed, but once again brings up the issues we have seen presented in the movie EPIC 2014. I know, I know. It is a very common link in all my blogs, but it is so on-point and highlights the challenges we have right now pretty well.

I guess we have to start asking ourselves what type of media outlet we would like to see in the future and who that actors on this new media arena will be. My bet is not a Google Search Result Page is the right place for it, and probably never will be in the traditional sense. Can Google be an actor? Sure, but I doubt that too. It would be sidestepping their core business.

  • eriks
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The most common failure of any community site
150 150 eriks

The challenge is to as a company be open and diverse in itself, as well as really listen to the community. I have seen so many community sites fail because they try to stick down their own beliefs, preconceptions and opinions down the throat of their community. Or even worse speak about themselves in the sense of “I did this…” or “I did that…”. Self-glorification should be banned from any representative for the company, and constant self-reflection strongly recommended. Ask yourself this. Which party would you go to? The one where the host/hostess only want to show off, or the party in the park where it is come as you are and you feel like one with the group.

Inviting a community is “simple”, yet one of the most challenging things to attempt. It is about realizing that what you as a community site think is completely non-important. You have to genuinely speak, think and breath community in all your interaction and realize that communities are not built, they are invited. It is not about design. It is not about functionality. It is about people. People come if they feel connected and invited. You have to realize that you are but only a part of the community. You have to become the community.

Think of your role as a company as being the shepherd. Your role is to keep the sheep together and to find them grass and leafs to eat. Telling the sheep how to be sheep doesn’t really work or make sense. Yet so many community sites try to do that.

  • eriks
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